Hello everyone!
New to the forums and am in desperate need of some help/advice.
I have a lightly used 2005 17" Power Book G4 Aluminum with a 1.67GHz PPC, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD, superdrive, etc. (Was fully loaded for the time). It came from the factory with Tiger, but my son has been using Leopard on it recently. I handed this Mac down to my son who uses it for Internet surfing and emailing/chat. Recently, it has been having SBODs more frequently and hangs. I have performed Disk Repair in Disk Utilities and have to repair disk permissions which for some reason, always seem to be messed up even right after "repairing" them. About a week ago, the Mac had a SBOD that lasted a long time and the screen image became distorted (skewed) while using iPhoto and completely hung requiring a manual restart. Upon restart, it now has a gray screen with the flashing ? folder. I realize that this means it cannot find a working OS, but my problems are these.
I have tried running Disk Warrior, but I simply get a gray screen with the Apple logo in dark gray and the spinning gear. The drive sounds like the reader is going crazy reading from the disc, but it never seems to finish. I am not sure if it takes hours to repair it, or if it is unable to read from it and just keeps trying and fails. The drive intermittently spins up for short periods and the read arm sounds like it is moving a lot but it never gets past this stage of spinning gear so I can troubleshoot. At least for as long as I have let it run like this, which is about 45 minutes to an hour.
I also have tried to re-boot from my Tiger OS discs, but it doesn't allow me to get to ANY diagnostic or Archive & Install screen. I cannot locate the Leopard disc I used to install Leopard, so I cannot try that either. I basically want to recover the music and photos on the machine at this point, as it's been about 6 months since I last backed this machine up but I would like to get it working again obviously also.
Does anyone know how long Disk Warrior should take to get to a troubleshooting screen? (Seemed like the last time I used it, it was pretty quick, about 5 minutes max).
Also, why can't I perform a erase and install from the Tiger discs that came with the machine if nothing else? I know I would lose the music and photos, but if nothing else, I would like to get my son a usable computer again.
I have tried safe boot but it doesn't complete to a usable screen, but I AM able to get to Open Firmware input screen but I am unfamiliar with OF, so I am not sure what command if any, is available to Archive & Install. Does anyone know if I can try anything from the OF screen?
Does this sound like a bad HDD, or something else?
Any tips I haven't tried that someone can offer?
Any help will be greatly appreciated. I am unemployed and cannot afford to buy my son a new laptop.
Thanks in advance.
Pat
New to the forums and am in desperate need of some help/advice.
I have a lightly used 2005 17" Power Book G4 Aluminum with a 1.67GHz PPC, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD, superdrive, etc. (Was fully loaded for the time). It came from the factory with Tiger, but my son has been using Leopard on it recently. I handed this Mac down to my son who uses it for Internet surfing and emailing/chat. Recently, it has been having SBODs more frequently and hangs. I have performed Disk Repair in Disk Utilities and have to repair disk permissions which for some reason, always seem to be messed up even right after "repairing" them. About a week ago, the Mac had a SBOD that lasted a long time and the screen image became distorted (skewed) while using iPhoto and completely hung requiring a manual restart. Upon restart, it now has a gray screen with the flashing ? folder. I realize that this means it cannot find a working OS, but my problems are these.
I have tried running Disk Warrior, but I simply get a gray screen with the Apple logo in dark gray and the spinning gear. The drive sounds like the reader is going crazy reading from the disc, but it never seems to finish. I am not sure if it takes hours to repair it, or if it is unable to read from it and just keeps trying and fails. The drive intermittently spins up for short periods and the read arm sounds like it is moving a lot but it never gets past this stage of spinning gear so I can troubleshoot. At least for as long as I have let it run like this, which is about 45 minutes to an hour.
I also have tried to re-boot from my Tiger OS discs, but it doesn't allow me to get to ANY diagnostic or Archive & Install screen. I cannot locate the Leopard disc I used to install Leopard, so I cannot try that either. I basically want to recover the music and photos on the machine at this point, as it's been about 6 months since I last backed this machine up but I would like to get it working again obviously also.
Does anyone know how long Disk Warrior should take to get to a troubleshooting screen? (Seemed like the last time I used it, it was pretty quick, about 5 minutes max).
Also, why can't I perform a erase and install from the Tiger discs that came with the machine if nothing else? I know I would lose the music and photos, but if nothing else, I would like to get my son a usable computer again.
I have tried safe boot but it doesn't complete to a usable screen, but I AM able to get to Open Firmware input screen but I am unfamiliar with OF, so I am not sure what command if any, is available to Archive & Install. Does anyone know if I can try anything from the OF screen?
Does this sound like a bad HDD, or something else?
Any tips I haven't tried that someone can offer?
Any help will be greatly appreciated. I am unemployed and cannot afford to buy my son a new laptop.
Thanks in advance.
Pat